About

These are my ramblings about my life as a HAM. After more than 15 years as 11 meter pirate i finally got my HAM license. Not restricted by any form of knowledge about RF, electronics, propagation or whatever i write about what happened after that.

Comments

I recently bought a TS 590SG and wanted to hook it up to my HDSDR setup. I used HDSDR and Omnirig and for the receive signal coming in, I used the drv connector on the rear of the 590SG and through the menu, switched it to Antenna. I connected this directly to the antenna connector on my upconverter and now whatever my 590SG receives, I see on the panadapter. Even the weak signals can be seen, and I can see the whole band. It worked for me and no surgery or cables to make. In the Front End RF Calibration, I have it set to use the dongle. No need to figure out the IF frequency or offset. Just thought I’d let you know how I did it. Take care and I like your site. 73’s………
Scott
KB6ZYJDraxx2755@yahoo.com

Two things:
I don’t get the “I used the drv connector on the rear of the 590SG and through the menu, switched it to Antenna”. Which menu number turns the drv output into an antenna input?
Second thing is that i don’t have an upconverter, so i had to use the IF from the radio. Also the IF signal is not so clean as i would like, so maybe the ant connector would indeed be a better solution. Also i want to use my filters of the radio and using CN303 doesn’t allow you to use them. I have an RTL adapter with direct sampling on order. Let’s see if that gives better results.

Did you ever figure how the hell to tune SDR Console? I tried it and two things I disliked were its massive size. (I suspect the efficiency of software that comes as a huge download), and the seemingly impossible tune method. I can only believe we have been doing something wrong as others would be screaming about it. Have you found the “secret” yet? 😉 I too an happy with HDSDR for now, I hope they are still working on itm there have been no updates for quite a while now. All the best.

I think the “secret” is in the fact that SDR Console is a great SDR program, but it’s not a great panadapter. And that’s how we use HDSDR, as a panadapter. Basically what we want HDSDR to do is listen always on the same frequency (73.095MHz) but still move the VFO as if we were listening on whole the HF band. If you take a regular SDR program, like SDR Console, you will see signals at 1-2MHz up and down from 73MHz and nothing more. It takes special software like HDSDR to function as a panadapter. Basically all other SDR software i tried, SDR#, SDR Console, linrad and more all work the way SDR programs need to work. Listen to your SDR device (in my case the RTL adapter) on the frequency the VFO of the software shows you. HDSDR is special in that respect. I don’t think they are still working on HDSDR. And frankly, i wouldn’t know what else they needed to put in the program. It’s great in what it does. Making it do more only makes it bigger and normally only satisfies few people. After all, everybody is looking for something else in their radio software.

Do you still have the software for the CRT 2M. Your download page appears to be blank. I’ve just purchased one second hand to get me in to the world of amateur radio having qualified for my foundation license a few months ago. Thank you, David.

I have a TS-590S and will be getting an SDRPlay for Christmas. I was thinking about making the CN101 mod like you did, to connect the 2 together. When you connect the 2, does it affect the reception on the TS-590S in any way? Do you get any noise between the 2? I’m wondering if I should connect the SDRPlay directly to CN101, or if I should use a buffer circuit to better isolate the 2 devices.

No, connecting CN101 to the SDR doesn’t affect the reception of the TS-590 at all nor does it introduce any side effects. I am using this connection straight into the SDR without any buffer amp and i have not seen any issues so far.

1.Connect the antenna output of the RTL-SDR receiver to the DVR RCA jack on the back of the radio. OK
2. MENU 85 enable ant , in the front of radio press DVR button. OK
3. HDSDR software. (How to configure RF-front-end)﻿
4.Configuring HDSDR software? I have 590SG﻿ ·

I don’t have an SG, so i don’t know what menu 85 does, but i can imagine that you just use omni-rig to sync HDSDR and with the TS-590 as described in the article. No need for a serial port replicator anymore.

Thanks for your blog post on connecting an SDRPlay RDS1 to your TS-590S. I’m looking to embark on the same project; did you put a buffer amp between the TS-590S and the RDS1? If not, did you notice any increase in noise or loss of sensitivity with the RDS1 installed? I’ve read a lot about the need for a buffer amp when connecting to the IF chain of transceiver, but that is a different configuration than you’ve presented.
Thanks & 73,
David, KG0EW

I’ve done both, first i had an RTL-SDR which, as you might know, doesn’t go below 24MHz without up-converter. So i had to find a signal in the radio which is in the range of the RTL-SDR. I found the first IF which is at 73MHz, if i remember well. That worked fine, but i wanted something more. I wanted to be able to listen to the SDR on HF independent of the frequency the radio is tuned to.
So i bought the SDRPlay and stuck it straight at the antenna input. That works fabulously, without buffer amp or anything. I still have it like that and see no reason to change. Never change a winning team. 😉